The trend in sharing services popularized by Uber Technologies Inc. and Airbnb Inc. will take longer to gain a foothold in the world of aviation, if at all.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration reviewed its rules and determined that AirPooler Inc., which connects pilots with passengers willing to split fuel costs and other expenses for travel, isn’t operating legally.

Last week’s decision erects a barrier to extending the so-called sharing economy into air travel. Car-hailing service Uber and room-rental company Airbnb have faced similar legal hurdles as traditional industry competitors — and the legacy rules that apply to them — confront technological changes in the way customers seek to use and pay for day-to-day services.

“There’s a really deep underlying economic basis” for the shared-services model, AirPooler CEO Steve Lewis said Friday in a telephone interview. “It’s much more than a fad for the shared economy because you have all these assets around that are being underutilized.”

Investors, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Google Ventures, are pouring cash into the burgeoning market for sharing apps, including those that let users order taxis and cars or share rides. San Francisco-based Uber, which is active in more than 40 countries, raised $1.2 billion in funding in June, giving it a value of $17 billion.

Airbnb, a short-term room-rental service for travelers, was valued at about $10 billion after its last round of fundraising.

In the AirPooler case, the FAA’s legal interpretation rejects the idea that the air-travel service simply amounts to cost-sharing rather than a commercial aviation operation. The service is equivalent to charter flights and would require additional licenses and regulatory oversight, the FAA said in a Wednesday letter to a lawyer for AirPooler.

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